Free Republic

Nine months ago, when followers of President Trump stormed the Capitol to halt the election of President Biden, the insurrection appeared to be the work of an extremist fringe led by right-wing militias and pro-Trump zealots. But election denialism, the movement that spawned the uprising, has turned out to be much larger, more durable and every bit as worrisome as the violence of Jan. 6. Stoked relentlessly by Trump, the belief that Biden stole the election has become a tenet of faith for most Republican voters. In fact, Biden won the election decisively — whether measured by the popular vote...

Washington seems to be barreling toward a constitutional crisis. Democrats are barraging President Trump with demands for witnesses and documents. Trump has answered by stonewalling, vowing to fight “all the subpoenas.” As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned, Trump seems to be goading the Democratic-controlled House toward impeachment, perhaps because it’s a battle he thinks he can win. Politicians on both sides are repairing to their tribal corners. Is there anyone who can serve as honest referees in this partisan standoff? One answer — don’t laugh — is lawyers. Specifically, Republican lawyers. Even as Republicans in Congress have fallen in line...

Ask Trump supporters why they back him, and you hear different versions of the same litany: He's not a politician. He's a businessman who can get things done. He doesn't bow to “political correctness.” “He's a billionaire,” explained Deborah Patronik, Richard's wife. “He's saying a lot of things that we're thinking,” said Gil Brown, 54, an African American businessman from Lakeland. “It's so refreshing to hear somebody say things clearly.” (Brown said he wasn't worried about Trump's views on race. “I've been on the receiving end of racism. I know what it's like,” he said. “I'm not hearing it from...

I talked with Republican wise men last week — sober establishment strategists who have seen many presidential campaigns come and go — to ask them how long the improbable popularity of Donald Trump can last. Reassure me, I said: He can't actually win, right? Their answers surprised me.

Sen. Ted Cruz is getting close to announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. The Texan is spending almost as much time in Iowa and New Hampshire as he does on Fox News; he's hired a staff and collected a long list of fiercely conservative supporters.. There's at least one hitch: Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, in the Canadian province of Alberta. His mother was a U.S. citizen, born in Delaware; his father, a Cuban refugee working in Canada's oil fields. Thanks to his mother, Cruz was a U.S. citizen at birth. But that doesn't clear up a...

The emergency immigration bill House Speaker John A. Boehner initially proposed last week was never going to become law — and he knew it. President Obama had already promised a veto, so the bill was mostly a political message, designed to show that House Republicans could act decisively in a crisis.. Except they couldn't. Tea party conservatives revolted, demanding a chance to undo Obama's decision to defer deportations of young immigrants. And the speaker added to the picture of disarray by calling on Obama to use more executive power in the border crisis — only a few days after authorizing...

In other words, Putin's looking at the 21st century through the cold, wary eyes of a Russian realist, and he sees it differently than Western leaders do. Take the recent threats of economic sanctions from Europe and the United States. Putin thinks the West will hesitate before imposing crippling sanctions on Russia's economy because of Europe's many financial interests in Moscow. (So far, he's right about that.) And he thinks the West will tire of imposing sanctions before Russia feels any need to back down. "His message is: We think you've been trampling our interests, and we have a higher...

There may still be half a dozen contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, but the race has always had room for only two: Mitt Romney and someone who isn't Mitt Romney. After four full-scale debates, that second spot, reserved for a more conservative candidate, is still unfilled; the fiscal firebrands of the tea party haven't found an ideal alternative to Romney, leaving the party's right wing divided. It's beginning to look as if the former Massachusetts governor will win the nomination almost by default — an odd outcome to a year that began with the tea party triumphant. That also...

Sarah Palin is giving indecision a bad name. Not only can't she decide whether to run for president, this week she even waffled over whether to keep a date to speak at a "tea party" rally in Iowa on Sunday, a Sarah-palooza her devotees have been organizing for weeks. Every other serious Republican presidential hopeful has already decided, one way or the other. But Palin? The former Alaska governor surfaces without warning every month or so, like the Loch Ness monster, to let her supporters know she still exists. She insists that she has what it takes to run for...

"Wobbly." "Indecisive." "Dithering." The old guard of the D.C. liberal press establishment is telling Barack Obama in no uncertain terms that he has taken too long to decide a course of action in Afghanistan.Writing in their respective home newspapers, the Washington Post's David Broder, Jackson Diehl and the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus each penned columns published today that serve notice to Obama that his latest postponement of a resolution to the debate on Afghanistan has damaged his image as commander-in-chief such that they can no longer provide him cover.In the op-eds, Obama is compared unfavorably to his predecessor, President...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for 6/24 and 6/25/06 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.Sunday Shows for 6-25-06 ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) Meme: What is wrong with these Democrats?  We hand them the election on a silver platter and they just screw it up!Bush has had two good weeks - it's time to bring out the big guns and knock that fool down a peg Topics: Iraq Withdrawal?: In a pair of exclusive...